Let’s Play the Blame Game

Growing up, most little girls want to be a princess. They dream about the day they will meet their prince charming and all of their dreams that are going to come true. Boys are usually thinking about their battles with villains and their adventures as cowboys. Whether it is a child or adult, everyone has an imagination. What we see and consume, though, shapes our imagination. Disney in itself is the “land where all dreams come true”, right?

Growing up, surrounded by the Disney culture, it is difficult not to be sucked in by all the loveable characters, happy endings, and their land of make believe. Critics take Disney and pick it apart as this evil corporation with hidden messages in their films. The happy stories we all grew up indulged in are now being depicted as inappropriate and setting bad values.

Every child needs fantasies in their life, just some of Disney’s were not as pure as many thought. Over the years, Disney has made changes in their production and have been creating films with more variety. Race is not shown in a negative light as it was in movies like Tarzan. Disney is now creating films with princesses who are not just white, but of different cultures. This is definitely a step in the right direction because every child should be able to connect with the films, not just one distinct group of children.

Females in the majority of movies were also depicted as “perfect”. Disney along with society puts pressures on girls to be their version of beautiful, being skinny and having big glimmering eyes. These portrayals of women set bad examples of what beauty actually is, giving girls the impression they have to look like this. However, this is a shallow representation made by Disney along with the rest of society. Everywhere you look, you see society’s distorted image of what they deem as beautiful.

Disney has made controversial films and displayed some faulty values, but that should not take away the attributions it as a corporation has given to American culture. Most of people’s memories as a child in some way include Disney, with the majority of those memories being good. Disney had so much impact on many childhoods and few would actually say it was not positive or a happy experience. It would seem unfamiliar if that did not continue to go on in the future.

In essence our favorite classics were not the perfect fairytales that Disney tried to make them seem, but that would not change my decision to watch them now. Our generation did not realize then what they were representing, just as kids do not now.

Just as Disney is guilty in terms of negative representation of values, society is just as bad. People see the many flaws in this huge corporation, but there is undoubtedly enough blame to go around.